The Willow Tree
by Webster
Summary: In this sequel to "Line of Demarcation," a few missing toes won't stop Dean from selling his soul at Cold Oak-or from taking on a routine job a few weeks later.


THEN:

Every night, Dean brushes his teeth. Dad had always been compulsive about dental hygiene. He checks all the weapons, cleans them if they've been used today.

Then, while Sam is showering, he pulls off his boots and inspects his feet.

NOW:

Ellen Harvelle sat in the corner of someone else's bar, writing in a notebook. Days before, the Devil's Gate had released hundreds of demons fresh from Hell, the Midwest had lost a dozen hunters and Ellen had lost her home, dear friends, and all her case files.

By this point, her daughter probably thought she was dead. She had no phone number for Jo, and with hundreds of demons gunning for her, Ellen couldn't exactly take out an ad in the personals. If they managed to find each other before this war claimed one or the other, it was for damned sure Ellen would never let her go again.

Still, the ordinary work of hunting didn't stop, and there were a sight fewer hunters to do it these days. _Maybe I'll pass one on to the Winchesters,_ she thought. With Dean's, ah, mortgage, they could use something to get their minds off of demons.

She pulled out a phone. "Hey, Sam, where are you boys?"

"Still in Nebraska. What's up?"

"I've got a job for you, sort of."

"Sort of?"

"Hunter named Ted mentioned a suspicious bunch of deaths in Ames, Iowa, over the last few years, all in early June. That's all he said to me, and his notes are gone now. Still..."

"I remember him. Ted knew a pattern when he saw it. We'll check it out."

"Dean?" Sam called, following his brother into a motel room just across the state line in Logan. "You're limping. What's up?"

"Just a little sore, Sammy. Getting tossed by a demon will do that to you."

"Did you pull something? Should I-No, it's your foot, isn't it?" Sam suddenly recognized the limp. It had none of the lurching associated with a sore hip or wrenched knee. Dean was moving as if his left foot didn't want to bend.

"It's fine."

After Dean's frostbite, any injury to his feet was cause for serious concern. Normally, Sam would allow his brother to care for his marred feet privately, but today he planted himself on his bed, arms folded.

"Let me see it."

"C'mon, Sammy, I'm tired."

"It's not like I haven't seen your foot before."

Dean reached for his laces. The shoe came away with a peculiar tugging sound, and the front of his sock was soaked with blood. Slowly he peeled it away.

"Well, you're not walking on that tomorrow." Sam observed. "Want me to dig up some crutches?"

Dean scowled.

"It's that or sit on that bed for the next week or two. Because I am not dragging you to the hospital for a new amputation when that mess gets infected."

Dean opened his mouth, then shut it again, gritting his teeth into something probably intended as a smile.

"You know what? I'd love crutches."

Sam helped him heelwalk into the bathroom and sat him down on the edge of the tub. He rinsed the blood off of Dean's feet, then checked both carefully for wounds. Broken blisters notwithstanding, the skin looked substantially healthier than the last time Dean had allowed him a close look, while he was still laid up after the frostbite.

Fortunately, it appeared that the left forefoot was the only injury Dean's neglect had bought him. As Dean dried and moisturized the intact right one, Sam treated the left with generous helpings of antiseptic and aloe and dressed it with gauze. Again walking only on the heel, Dean climbed back into bed.

"How about you get us some food?" Dean asked, reclining against the headboard. "I think I saw a diner back where we turned off the highway."

"Sure," Sam replied. "I'll just..." And he grabbed Dean's shoes on the way out the door.

"Hey!" Dean shouted at his back.

Fortunately, the waitress at the diner was a cheerful, motherly gossip. When Sam spun a tale about a frisbee accident while traveling and health insurance that didn't work in Iowa, she knew exactly which neighbor might have a pair of tall crutches in the back of his coat closet. They cost Sam a cup of coffee with said neighbor and a few minutes' friendly conversation while waiting for food to be cooked and wrapped for him.

Though Sam remained polite, he twitched anxiously throughout the country courtesy. Every minute he wasted there was a minute he could have spent finding a way out of Dean's deal.

Once Dean was finally asleep, though, Sam made up for lost time. He'd exhausted the more reliable paranormal websites days ago and, lacking other research avenues, turned his attention to the likes of and worse. Around four in the morning, he read an article claiming that the aliens the Ancient Greek gods had been named after had saved the writer from demons. Sam knew it was bedtime when he found himself seriously considering the possibility.

In the morning, Dean found some clean gauze and wrapped his foot over the dressings, making his amputation less obvious.

"Shake a leg, Sam, " he urged, hobbling toward the door. "Ames is over a hundred miles from here. Might take all day, the way you drive."

"You want to work this job on crutches? How are you going to fire a shotgun with no hands free?"

"I didn't say anything about shooting. I just want to look into things a bit." Dean offered the exact grin he'd used on that girl the week before—the one Sam had seen far more of than he wanted to.

"And when whatever it is comes after us? You know, your right foot isn't exactly up to marathon crutching sessions either."

"I am not sitting this one out, Sammy. I'll stay off the foot, but I'm not staying home. "

With only a thirdhand rumor of a case to go on, they headed to the library first. Sam headed to the archives and rear stacks to check into local legends, and Dean checked the past few years' newspaper records, trying to identify the strange deaths Ted had mentioned.

When Sam returned to the library's main room, Dean was sitting at a computer, notepad at his elbow. The crutches rested on the back of his chair and his foot rested atop a folded jacket on another chair. He looked up as Sam approached.

"So, over the past eleven years, twenty-five people in or near this town have drowned in the river. Twenty-three of them were young men who drowned in the first week of June, and no one drowned in the five years before that. To get anything earlier, I'd have to go to microfiche, but I don't think we need to. Not only is that a hell of a coincidence, early June is usually after the spring flood and before most people go swimming here in central Iowa. And some of the drownings were...weird."

Sam pulled up a chair. "Define weird."

"Well, at least two of them apparently went swimming alone, at midnight, with their shirts on and their pants lying on shore. I may dress that way on occasion, but I usually have company."

"Yeah, I know," Sam muttered, then shook his head. "How many drownings were there in 1997?"

"One, same pattern."

"And in '96?"

"One. A young woman named Erica Pecharsky committed suicide. Which has vengeful spirit written all over it, except that she died in October, and now all the men are dropping dead in June."

"Either way, probably a man-hating ghost. Salt and burn?"

"Her remains were never found."

"Which means we need to get creative. Again." Sam frowned, then went on, "A young woman who committed suicide, now men are drowning in early June. I wonder what that means."

"It means we need to take a look at the river, and we need to try to figure out why that Erica girl offed herself."

"So did they figure out where Erica jumped from?"

"A footbridge in Smith Park, on the edge of the Iowa State University campus," Dean read off.

"No car access. Perfect. Wait, was Erica a student?"

"Yep. Second year, from Chicago."

"So finding people around here who remember her, eleven years later..."

"Is going to be interesting."

Dean grabbed his stack of notes and printouts, then pushed himself up with a hand on the table and reached for the crutches, stopping as he realized he'd run out of hands. Sam took the papers and passed him the crutches, setting a measured pace back out to the car.

"One more thing," Dean added. "It looks like the attacks are getting more frequent. Last year, there were five."

"And June's already started," Sam replied grimly, pulling open the car door. "So we've gotta solve this fast."

With summer break underway, the college town had so little traffic the streets should have been growing moss, but Sam stared at the road as if he were negotiating a six-lane freeway in rush hour. His leaned forward, shoulders hunched in toward the steering wheel.

"All right, Sammy, let's hear it."

"Hear what?"

"Whatever you're pissed at me about this time."

Finally Sam leaned back and looked at his brother.

"This complication? With your foot? Didn't have to happen, and you know it. How long have you been neglecting it?"

Dean stared out the window.

"A few weeks."

"Since the deal, right? You think it doesn't matter any more, because you're going to die. I told you, we're gonna find a way to fix it. I'm going to get you out of the deal, but you have to take care of yourself meanwhile."

The river drew into sight, and Dean seized the diversion.

"I think we could park over there to go check out the bridge," he suggested.

"We could. But, I'm going to drop you off on campus to see if you can find something about Erica in the college newspaper archives or something, while I hike to the bridge.

"Sam!"

"It's the middle of the day, Dean. No way she's gonna attack."

"Archives? Seriously?"

The brothers met up for dinner in the University cafeteria. By the time Sam got there, Dean was already headed to a table with a slender, redheaded girl carrying a tray of food for him.

"Yeah, it was an intramural rugby match right after finals," he was saying. "Hairline fracture, but we won by one point so, hey, almost worth it." Dean grinned at the girl as they maneuvered tray and crutches through the obstacle course of tables, finally finding an empty one. "Tina, I just can't believe a woman as gorgeous as you could possibly be so kind and generous.

Tina smiled back, a little shyly. "I gotta get back to work." Before she left, however, she leaned over to scribble on a napkin.

Sam headed to the food line to buy his own dinner, a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Dean had acted just the same way when he broke his leg in high school, right down to the same pickup line.

"So, Sammy, how's the evil bridge?" Dean asked, as Sam joined him at the table.

"Well, the bridge is...a footbridge. In a park, with paths and trees. I walked over it a few times, checked up and down the river on both sides with the EMF, nothing. Not at this hour, anyway. The closest parking I could find that didn't require any climbing was about a quarter mile away on the town side of the river. How about you, any info on Erica?"

"There was plenty about her in the archives, most of it both dusty and useless. I learned that she played the cello, liked strawberry ice cream, and was an only child. Oh, and apparently everyone adored her. Nothing about why she killed herself, or who she might have a grudge against. What I did find were the names of some of her friends, one of whom apparently got a job in the University admissions office and still lives around here."

"Well, it's almost 8 pm, it'll be dark soon. I'll stake out the bridge tonight, and you can interview the admissions officer tomorrow."

"What do you mean you'll stake out the bridge?"

"Well, there's no way you're coming."

"Dean, this is the worst idea you've had in days."

Two men moved down a footpath toward the riverbank, one on crutches, the other carrying a duffel.

"What if she shows up?" He went on.

"That's what the salt is for," Dean replied.

"And if we need to retreat?"

"That's why I'm wearing a shoe, Sam."

"Right. You're wearing a shoe so you can dive into the action and rip open your wounds."

"We've been through this already. I'm not going to let a man die tonight, and I'm not going to let you take on the monster alone."

Sam raised a hand in frustration, then let it fall back to his side.

"I was thinking we could set up there, in that clump of trees just north of the bridge. It'll provide cover, but we should still be able to see everything. You'll take the high road?" Sam asked.

Dean nodded in agreement. When they reached a tree of sufficient size, he dropped his crutches, grabbed a branch and pulled himself up, then took his tree chair off his back and settled in. Sam laid a salt circle around the tree, then pulled out a camoflage blanket and sat down against the tree trunk, hiding himself and the crutches under it.

"Oh, man, Sammy, do you remember the first time you took the high road? You couldn't've been more than fourteen." Dean grinned wickedly.

"Oh, God."

"The black dog broke out of the underbrush, you fired your shotgun, and, not only did you miss, but you forgot to grip the branch with your knees and the recoil on that big ole twelve-gauge knocked you right out of the tree."

Sam covered his eyes.

"You landed right on the dog though! I thought it was going to run off carrying you on it's back, and I couldn't get a shot off, because you and it were so tangled up. Dad was closer, though, managed to get from his foxhole over to you in about three and a half seconds and put his pistol right on the damned thing's skull."

Sam laughed softly, his posture softening. "Yeah, and he made me spend the next three weeks firing every gun in the arsenal from every possible position, standing on one leg, standing on a log that rolled back and forth, running, one-armed while hanging from a tree..."

They sat in silence as the first stars appeared. Under cover of darkness, Sam pulled out a pair of shotguns, passed one up to Dean, and laid the other across his lap.

Not half an hour later, they heard a woman singing nearby.

They couldn't make out the words, though the song sounded old. The woman's voice was sweet but cold, at once melodic and unsettling. It was like listening to a lullaby played on a steel guitar. Sam looked towards the singing and saw no one. Then Dean whispered, "Up!"

The singer was sitting in the spreading branches of a black willow tree that leaned out over the river. She was a young woman, soaking wet, dressed in a simple white gown with bare feet swinging beneath the heavy, clinging skirts. She was beautiful, her ripe form clearly outlined by the wet clothing, and as she sang, she combed her long chestnut-brown hair. But her eyes were too big and blazed with an unnatural light, and the hand that gripped the comb had nails like claws.

The hunters watched and waited. There wasn't much traffic in the park after dusk, and the spirit fell silent and vanished whenever a group passed by. Close to midnight, however, a man approached the bridge alone.

The traveler approached from the town side, walking slowly and planting his feet deliberately with each step. As he passed the Winchesters' tree, he giggled faintly.

_Walking home from the bars alone, friggin plastered, at midnight, through a deserted park? I can't believe I sat in a tree for three hours to save a guy this dumb,_ Dean thought irritably.

The singing rose, and the being climbed down from her tree. Her gown glowed in the moonlight, and for the first time they could see her face clearly. It was Erica Pecharsky.

She approached the drunk boy, still singing. He walked toward her, entranced. He stumbled repeatedly, but his gaze never left the beautiful creature before him.

The singing finally stopped as she whispered in his ear and took his hand.

He giggled again. "You're cold."

"Of course, I've been swimming. Would you like to swim with me?"

The drunk was already reaching for the zipper of his pants.

Dean raised the barrel of his shotgun.

"That's enough," Sam announced, stepping out onto the path with his own shotgun held as discretely as possible at his side.

"Hey, I saw her first, buddy."

The spirit hissed and gripped his arm. Her claws dug in, nearly drawing blood.

Sam raised his shotgun. As the moonlight glinted off the barrel, the drunken giggling cut off abruptly.

"Take it easy, man. I didn't know she was yours, honest!"

The ghost flung him into the river, then descended on him. Sam fired, and she dissipated. Holding the gun out of the way, he helped the rapidly sobering man climb back up onto the bank. "Run!" Sam shouted, and the man ran.

For Sam, running was not an option.

"Drop!" Dean shouted, and Sam was on the ground before the word left the air. Salt ripped through the space where he'd been standing a moment earlier and tore the spirit apart again. Sam retreated and put his back to Dean's tree.

The ghost looked from one to the other, hissed in fury, and vanished.

The hunters waited another hour, just to be sure, but she did not return.

"She's a Rusalka, a water-dwelling ghost." Sam announced, almost as soon as the car doors shut. "I've never seen one before, but that has to be what she is."

"Does that help?"

"Maybe."

It was almost two in the morning by the time the pair returned to their motel room, and Dean slept well into the next day. When he finally woke up, Sam was already at his laptop, in almost the same position he'd been when Dean fell asleep the night before.

"Did you sleep? At all?"

"Course I did. So, the spirit definitely fits the descriptions of a Rusalka. According to Russian and Eastern European folklore, they are vengeful ghosts of young women who haunt a river. They are either naked or dressed as brides, and all versions agree young men are the victim of choice. Even the seasonal nature of the killings fits-early June is something called Rusalka Week, when the Rusalki are at their most active. They come out of the water, sing, dance in circles with other Rusalki, and lure victims to their deaths."

"So how do we kill her?"

"Again the lore varies, but says here that the Rusalka will die if her hair ever dries out."

"Hey, there's a blow dryer in the bathroom. We could plug it into the battery pack."

"Actually, they are said to carry a magic comb with them that keeps their hair wet at all times."

"So, we need to sneak up on the girl and steal her comb? Sounds like some kind of third-grade prank."

"That, or we figure out why she jumped and try to bring peace to her spirit. Of course, the way the killings have accelerated means it might be too late for that."

"From what I saw last night, there's not much human left in her. She's a poltergeist with a pretty face. I say we steal her magic comb and blast her away with a hairdryer."

"We?"

"I figure I head down to her bridge, just like that guy last night, crutches and all. Draw her out. Then you lay down a salt circle and get the comb."

"So, you're going to be the bait." Sam glared at his brother.

"She got a fantastic look at you last night. Me, she saw nothing but a gun barrel. Besides, how could she resist this?"

"Resist the obvious target, who can't run away? Of course not."

Dean ignored the sarcasm. "Hey, do we still have that pair of fire pokers? I've got an idea."

Dean hummed as he hobbled awkwardly up the path, a crooked smile on his face. He carried a small backpack and a faint scent of beer hung on him—the very image of an injured student. Erica descended from her tree, drawn by his vulnerability. A closer inspection, however, might have revealed a different picture. He moved slowly not because he was tired, but because each wooden crutch had a heavy iron fire poker duct-taped to the inside. His jacket was zipped to the neck, hiding the sawed-off shotgun slung around his neck and the salted lasso up one sleeve. All of that would have given Erica pause had she known it, but Dean's most dangerous weapon waited behind a tree not ten yards away.

Dean allowed her to caress his back as he moved off the path, taking both crutches in one hand as he reached for the zipper of his jeans. As she touched his arm, ice-cold hands making a mockery of the lover's gesture, Dean's secret weapon moved in behind her and closed the salt circle.

Of course, once she realized she'd been betrayed, she started trying to claw his eyes out. He flicked his arm, and the damp rope slid into his hand. He grabbed her by the wrists and bound them together. She shrieked in dismay, but Dean threw himself backward over the salt line. She lunged after him, allowing Sam to step in and yank the comb from her hair. As Sam stepped back, however, she managed to free her hands, because Dean had not had enough time to knot the rope properly. Sam escaped, but not before she'd grabbed the hair dryer.

Dean sat up on the ground, shotgun in hand, just as the spirit placed her hand on the hairdryer and sent blue sparks flying from the motor.

"Now what?" Dean asked.

"Well, she's not going anywhere. Let's wait her out. Get the weapons out of sight in case someone comes by."

For two hours, they waited. The Rusalka tried to melt the salt circle by squeezing water from the hem of her gown, but Sam just mended it and laid a second circle around the first.

At last the Rusalka's hair began to dry. Little wisps of it curled up, away from her skull until it bristled like a squirrel's tail. Her face hollowed, and as she raised her hands in despair, they could see the skin on them cracking and flaking off. Her dress seemed to yellow and darken as the flesh beneath crumbled to dust.

"Take that, you creepy dead bitch!" Dean yelled, as she faded away to nothing.

Dean was close to bouncing on his crutches with pleasure as they hiked back to the car, blasting the radio and singing all the way back to the motel. The high of a successful hunt rang through his blood until Sam insisted on examining his feet again, both of them, and declared that the right one was swelling from overuse, and a few scabs on the left had torn open during the fight.

The next day found Dean laying on top of his blankets, bare feet propped on pillows in front of him. He raised his head to scowl at Sam.

"The case is done, the creepy Ukrainian chick is dusted—literally. Why are we still hanging around?"

"For once, there are no dead bodies, no disturbed graves, and the only witness was probably too drunk to remember. There's no reason we can't stick around for a couple more days. Let both of your feet heal up, then we'll move on." _Give me a chance to head back to that library, there are one or two rare books there that might touch on demon deals._

Dean scowled, then realized, "I could call Tina. I think she'd like playing nurse."

Sam's eyes widened as he dove for the door. "You do that, I'll be back... Late."

Tonight, Dean brushes his teeth. Dad always had been compulsive about dental hygiene. He checks all the weapons, cleans them if they've been used today. Then, while Sam is watching, Dean pulls off his boots and inspects his feet. It's not so hard, doing it in front of his brother.

It'll only need to be done another three hundred and nineteen times, after all.


End file.
